What I saw at an ABA clinic

Post Reply New Topic

Although I never recieved an official ASD diagnoses, I do recall experiencing several interventions that seem to be ABA based. Expressing myself was treated as defiance and punished. I learned to mask and was placed in a new group home where the house parents let me be me as long as nobody was hurt by it. I was allowed to have my routine. My chore was fixed. I was allowed, even encouraged to wander as long as I was home by dinner. I flourished in this environment. It seems to me that ABA teaches people to mask to satisfy a NT world. This often results in major problems later in life as many here can attest to.

I am with ASPoM on this, but I understand what the OP is saying and I’m grateful this was brought up. I agree, the problem is rewarding children to please others.

I am NT. My mom has always been mentally ill. My earliest memories are doing little things for her to make her happy, so she would treat me better. Lying, covering for her, being cute, etc.

You never want to train a person’s natural feelings out of them. Either softly with the smiles and rewards or by dog shock collars. What’s supposed to happen when the now grown adult is walking through a parking lot and is approached by a person requesting help? Is this a trick? Or does the person really need help? Your natural feelings should tell you. And I’m sorry, autistic feelings will tell you as well. They just work differently. You might notice the person’s shoes or the direction they came in instead of their face. Whatever works naturally is what you should be developing. Not your weaknesses.

Obviously, this is just my opinion, and it’s been made quite clear to me that no one professionally wants to hear my opinions, but *I* think things like social skills should be honed as an adult, and children should be left alone as much as possible. Let them be happy and form a strong sense of self and a strong set of interests, autistic or not. Don’t screw around with their young minds when there may not even be a problem.

Thing is, parenting a child on the spectrum can be really difficult. The parenting instincts you are born with often don't fit how a child on the spectrum learns. I'll give an example...

When my son doesn't get his way, he drops to the floor and screams. Now, the protective parent in you wants to get on the ground with him and console him and tell him everything will be all right. However, with ABA, they teach you that this just reinforces the behavior, and the child learns that whenever he wants attention, he can just lay on the floor and scream, and you'll come running. So, instead, you're taught to ignore the child. Once he learns the attention isn't coming, he will stop the dropping and tantrums. And it works. But is it the right way to parent? That, in my opinion, is the debate.

My 6-year old son was in an ABA center daily from age 2-5. Putting the ABA conversation aside for a moment, I can verify in our case that the technicians could not have been more positive. It was a wonderful place. Smart, motivated young adults really working hard to help the children learn age-appropriate skills and try to extinguish troublesome behaviors. There was never punishment. There was never an attempt to stop children from stimming or take away their personalities. Everything was extremely individualized. Kids were taught there were times they should try to be quiet and follow directions, and were taught to really advocate for themselves if they needed movement breaks and such.

I get the controversy. Kids are given tasks to which there is one acceptable way to accomplish, and have to perform the task over and over again until they "master" it. I kind of see how this could have potential long-term negative effects. But I personally don't see any "residue" from this in my son. He's a mostly happy dude with personality for days.

They potty-trained my son, helped a ton with his aggression, and helped him a lot with learning concepts that NT kids learn naturally. I'm not sure I could have taught him these things myself.

My son does have meltdowns, that isnt what these are.

The bigger point is that kids in ABA have to work really hard and often must perform tasks they don't want to do, instead of playing, stimming, or relaxing. Doesn't seem fair. Can that cause problems in a child?

Knowing how to manipulate people is a skill set autistic people are known to be naturally weak at. When autistics do lie it often is awkward or obvious.

This new book by a Board Certified Behavior Analyst demonstrates the problems with the "new ABA" I discussed at different points in this thread

Turn Autism Around: An Action Guide for Parents of Young Children with Early Signs of Autism Hardcover

Things evolve, like anything, sure ABA isnt perfect but unfortunatly there isnt much else out there for severely autistic kids.

Im sure the old ABA was horrific, so were the old mental hospitals & care home / orphanages, but things change, im sure many advocates are still looking at the past or resent the concept of intervention because from their perspective autism is natural alternative human & thus intervention is not needed.

But what is the price of no intervention for some of these kids? Greater disability & an early death maybe?

Seems like many advocates would rather sacrifice these kids for their misguided view of natural difference & as Silberman insensitively & absurdly said disability being a natural part of life.

There are other possible approaches to caring for young autistic children, besides ABA, such as DIR Floortime.

Many autistic advocates have recommended Floortime in place of ABA.

Some variants of ABA, such as Pivotal Response Training, incorporoate aspects of Floortime as well.